Free A Deal with Lord Devlin by Jennifer Ann Coffeen

Chapter One
    Lord James, the Earl of Devlin, smoothed down the front of his double-breasted tailcoat, tailored obscenely close to the body and dyed the color of crushed plums, before carefully placing a diamond-rimmed monocle over his left eye.
    He looked like a damned fool.
    “Tell me the truth, James. Does le gateau de fruit look crooked to you?”
    Squinting through the monocle, he stared past his mother in the direction of the monstrous fruit-and-pastry swan sculpture that festooned the entrance to the dining room. The Dowager Countess of Devlin stood next to him. A long, elegant finger tapped against her lips as she critically studied her decoration.
    He cocked his head to one side. “Is the swan supposed to look alive or dead?”
    “Don’t be impertinent,” she snapped. “It is meant to be a symbol of Andrew’s love for Francesca.”
    “A dead swan symbolizes the marriage of idiots?”
    That comment gained him a sharp glare over her shoulder. “Our livelihood depends on making Andrew happy tonight. Without him we are penniless and your sisters will be forced to marry beneath themselves.” With a quick snap of her fingers, she signaled the servants to add more cherries.
    “It’s obviously leaning. I fear the goose lard is beginning to melt.”
    Before he turned away, he muttered something about reducing the number of candles around the hideous thing.
    Personally, James would prefer a French guillotine to hosting this ridiculous engagement party. His mother was right, though. Due to an unfortunate turn of events, Sir Andrew Greenshaw now held the Devlins’ future in his hands. Unless James wanted to be known as the poorest earl in England, he had little choice but to hold his tongue.
    With a deep scowl, he turned his attention to the entrance of the ballroom. A few early guests were beginning to trickle in, mostly young debutantes and their chaperones, in awe of his mother’s bizarre decorations and overly lavish supper table. James didn’t recognize anyone, but that wasn’t much of a surprise. The most fashionable of London’s ton wouldn’t dare make an appearance at Devlin House until past midnight.
    He shifted uncomfortably in his butter-colored silk breeches, wondering how a man was ever supposed to breathe in such restrictive clothing. He let the ridiculous monocle drop from his eye, leaving it dangling on its gold chain.
    “Put that back immediately!” Lady Devlin tore her gaze away from the melting animal fat and sugared fruit to glare at her only son. “Didn’t we discuss this? You are to wear your monocle tonight. It’s all the fashion.”
    James sighed, obeying his mother. For now.
    “Much better.” Her blue eyes took him in as though he were another one of her decorations. “I’m happy to see you’ve managed to dress yourself fashionably, for once. Lucy and Penelope said you even allowed for your hair to be done.”
    James silently cursed his younger sisters, who felt it their duty to inform Mother of his every move. Was there no privacy in this house? He jerked a hand through the mass of hair that had been forcibly curled and combed to the front of his head.
    “Perhaps I’m finally setting my sights on marriage,” he said, knowing how sensitive the topic was.
    Her lips puckered. “It’s not the worst idea to take a wife with a large fortune. Then you can set aside a sizable inheritance for your sisters—and a sum for your dearest mother, of course. These things are terribly important, James! Your father thought he would live forever, and look what happened.”
    I became the new Earl, he thought bitterly. James’s life turned upside down the day his father challenged Lord Vestin to a high-speed race down Oxford Street. Both gentlemen were well past their youth, drunker than goats, and oblivious to an oncoming mail coach. The crash had been horrifying. His father had died on impact, while Lord Vestin retreated to his country home with crushed legs. It was the talk of London for